


The Hatchetfield Statements

by CoralChimaera



Category: Hatchetfield Universe - Team StarKid, Nightmare Time - Team StarKid, The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: F/M, Gen, in which the canon is Defied, look i just feel like a tma/hatchetfield crossover should exist, set around the beginning of S4
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-15 01:14:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29427960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CoralChimaera/pseuds/CoralChimaera
Summary: When Jonathan Sims learns that the archives received a package labeled "Nightmare Time" containing 6 cassettes and an envelope from a town called Hatchetfield, he doesn’t pay it much heed.Except it’s addressed directly to him, and wisps of spider silk float from the paper.So he does what any reasonable person would do, and listens.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 15





	1. Prologue

“Hey Jon?”

Jon peered upwards, despite knowing who it was. Melanie stood in the doorway, a box of cassettes nestled in her arms. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat, his newest scar itching. Whether she was as uncomfortable as he was, she had the courtesy not to say. Instead, she rattled the box emphatically. 

“We got a special delivery today.”  


He frowned. He Saw the delivery being made, but he assumed it was regular mail for Rosie to handle. 

“It isn’t from-“

“No, not them. Daisy killed one of them anyway, you said. But it came in the mail all the way from America. Addressed to you specifically from some town in Michigan? I dunno. But it came with a note. I think you should take a look.”  


She dumped the box unceremoniously on his desk and left.  


The note was in a neatly sealed envelope, his name scrawled in elegant cursive. He scowled at the spider postage stamp, and his fingers twitched. Even he could sense the threads of gossamer silk ensconcing the paper, and if the Web was involved with this delivery, it couldn’t be a good sign.  


He couldn’t refuse the letter though. He didn’t he didn’t need infinite knowledge to understand that refusing correspondence from the Web was a very good way to get yourself suffocated by spiders when you fell asleep.  


He groaned, steeled his nerves, and opened the envelope.  


“To the Archivist,  


6 statements for you. This isn’t a decision I take lightly. I have recorded these myself, as I know what would happen if you did. Do not remake these statements, Archivist. 

You will _not_ feed on them.

I don’t know if you can See them. For their sake, I hope you can’t.  


It is my belief that this knowledge is in safer hands with the unblinking eye than it is shrouded by the darkness of this place.  


Share this knowledge with those who need it.  


-H” 

Owing a favor to the Mother of Puppets was never a good thing. He eyed the statements with no small amount of trepidation. He could See the town the tapes came from, an island surrounded by thick forest. But he couldn’t See whoever “H” was. All he Saw was a flash of red hair tangled with web, and a pair of blue eyes gazing passively back.  


Selecting the first tape with a weary sigh, he loaded it into his recorder and silently pressed play.  


A pleasant and melodious voice warbled from the crackling speakers.  


“Statement of Officer Doug Jones, regarding the disappearance of the Duchess Lucy Stockworth...”


	2. The Hatchetfield Ape Man

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The statement of Officer Doug Jones, regarding the disappearance of Duchess Lucy Stockworth.

"Statement of Officer Doug Jones, regarding the disappearance of the Duchess Lucy Stockworth. Statement begins. Go on ahead, officer."

“Look, I don’t know if I’m supposed to talk about this? I mean, I want to. This isn’t gonna get me in trouble or anything, right? No? Okay.

Like, I’ve wanted to talk about this for a while. But everyone who was with me on the Stockworth case doesn’t talk about it. Last time I brought it up, Sam told me to shut the hell up. Which, y'know, isn’t unusual or anything, but there was something in his face that told me I should really pipe down. 

He looked scared. I’ve never seen him look so scared as he did at the mansion. 

So I’m guessing you heard all about the Stockworth case, huh? 

Yeah. Rich white lady goes missing, everyone panics and boo-hoos about it because it’s such a tragic loss of life, yadda yadda. You get the gist of it. 

Except here it’s not so tragic as it is... weird. Four people went missing in the Stockworth case, right? Only two bodies found. 

One of the bodies we found in the forest was ripped in two, right at the stomach. Sam found that one, and honestly I don’t blame him for being so touchy about the whole case. 

The mansion where Stockworth disappeared belonged to Henry Hidgens, a professor at the local college. No friends or family. His students said he was real paranoid and generally sorta weird. Most people avoided him. 

But I guess that paranoia meant he bought the best security systems money could buy. Like, I have no clue how he managed to afford all this with a professor's salary? There was actually some records of the IRS looking into him. Anyway, thank god for his crazy security system. This guy had cameras around his whole house. Like, his whole house. I mean, even the closets and bathrooms? Which has some creepy implications I'm not going to try thinking about. 

This guy lived alone. Why would he need this many cameras? Even if he was a creep, why would he put cameras in a guest bathroom that wasn't even used? Weird, y'know? 

The only room that didn't have cameras was the basement. So obviously, we check out the basement first. Nothing too crazy. Surprisingly, it was just a basement. Some weird script, old furniture, books, normal basement stuff. 

But normal stuff in a house that's so fuckin' weird is out of place. I went through some of the books. Did you know I took some book binding classes? Yeah, it was at Michaels and everything. I sucked at it, but it was fun. All these books were bound by hand, I'm guessing by the professor. Not well. It was shoddy work. Some had little plaques on 'em too. Those were in English, and said they were from some library? 

But flipping through the books didn't make sense. The books were in languages I didn't recognize. Stuff in what I think was Russian? Chinese characters? It was like a linguist's nightmare in there. Every single book had sticky notes in it in the worst handwriting I've ever seen. I think it was the professor's. I mean, I already have dyslexia, and there was no way I was trying to read that. 

Yeah, other than the unfinished script and the plaques, there was only one book in English. Pretty thin, some book called Hunting for Beginners? It had the little plaque on it with the funky library name. I dunno. 

I couldn't read through it if I wanted to. I could tell it was English, but it was all handwritten in cursive, so no reading that. I think it was a field guide or something. I flipped through it, but I saw the illustrations. Game like pheasants, deer, boar, wolf. But in the back, there were two entries that showed pictures of people. I figured they were the authors, a dark haired guy in a tux and a brunette lady. I couldn't read what their bios said though, and put the book down. Anyway, sorry, back to the cameras. 

So the books were a no go. I found the security booth, and let me tell you, I have no idea how anyone could process that much information. If you have a camera in every room of this crazy house and all around the property, there must've been a hundred live feeds coming through at once. Crazy stuff, but great for us. There had to've been evidence somewhere on there. 

Everyone else was pretty fucked up from finding the bodies, so I offered to go through the camera feeds. I probably shouldn't've. I had to go through thousands of hours of feed. Sure, I got help, but it sucked ass. 

So here's the timeline. About three months ago, Lucy Stockworth comes to Hatchetfield. It was on the news for days, even though it's a yearly thing. Anyway, she's saying that years ago, she met the "Wooly-Foot" in the Witch Wood, and she wants to find him again. 

Weird motivation? Yeah. But I didn't really care. It's not my job to care about where some rich British lady spends her money. 

But here's where stuff gets weird. About two months ago, her fiance arrives in Hatchetfield. They don't go back to Britain. I guess some relatives overseas were getting worried about them 'cause of their marriage and everything and tried filing a missing persons. 

We get sent over to make sure everything's okay, and everything is not okay. Doors are wide open, there's a body in the greenhouse. He'd been there for a while. I don't wanna go into details, you get the gist. 

So everyone's freaking out, we call in reinforcements, and we end up sending search parties into the surrounding woods. That's when we found the other body, and that's the one that was ripped in two. 

We got forensics on sight, but the bodies had been there for a couple weeks in the summer heat. Some of the animals had gotten to them too. Greenhouse body was clearly an animal, but the forest body was _bisected_. And not cleanly, either. _Ripped._ But here's the thing, there were already bullets in the body. A person couldn't have ripped a man in two, but an animal sure as hell can't use a gun. 

Dental records came back, identified the forest body as Jonathan Brisby, the fiance, and the greenhouse body as Theodore Spankoffski. He'd quit his job a couple months back and moved out of his apartment, but no records showed him moving to a new place. Cameras showed a moving van coming in with Spankoffski about four months ago. He and the professor were arguing about something, but the cameras don't record audio, so I don't know what they were saying. 

They talked a lot for that month. Spankoffski was reading a bunch of acting manuals for some reason? He also started walking around the house bare ass naked, and no, I don't want to talk about that either. For a while I thought it was method acting for the weirdest porno known to man. Oh, and let me just say? This guy jacked off all. The. Time. Jesus Christ. I had to fast forward through so much. 

He and the professor didn't interact much. Mostly just eat in silence, leave, do their own things. The professor usually went to the music room or to the basement, and Spankoffski usually just looked at his phone and jacked off. 

A few weeks in, Spankoffski and the professor actually start talking to each other. I think it was acting practice, because Spankoffski was doing these weird... monkey things? Y'know, like... acting like a monkey. Or a really horny ape. And the professor was coaching him on it, based on what he's gesturing. 

But then Stockworth comes into the picture. She looked really, really familiar to me, though I didn't know why. She's on the cameras about three months ago, first on the drive up to the house, then outside the gate, and then inside. She and the professor talk for a while, she nods a lot. At one point she gets really excited, and she and the professor go to the greenhouse. Spankoffski is in the greenhouse this entire time, and he looks kind of nervous? He's pacing a bit. He's also completely naked, like I said earlier. 

Stockworth ends up going to the greenhouse, talking to Spankoffski. He's acting real skittish, although I don't know if it's actual nerves or the acting. Anyway, Stockworth stays at the house, and Spankoffski keeps acting like a goddamn monkey around her. He still uses his phone when she isn't there, and yes, he is still a horny bastard. He and the professor aren't talking as much though. The professor is staying in the basement way more, and only really comes out to check up on them and stare out the window into the forest for hours at a time. Creepy as hell. No wonder the guy had so many cameras, anyone that obsessed with surveillance has some problems. 

Stockworth and Spankoffski are really hitting it off. He's still acting weird, but by now I've kinda assumed it's like... a roleplay? I dunno, I mean I think it's weird, but I'm not going to judge. But they seemed to really like each other. It was kinda sweet? I mean, weird, but still. 

Then everything starts going downhill. 

You have to understand, this entire time, I thought it was a weird sex thing. But this is where stuff gets... weird. 

I told you how the professor wasn't leaving his basement much anymore? Yeah. Now, he had a board of notes, conspiracy theory style, set up in his study. I couldn't read it from the camera quality, but it was showing different animals that live in the Witch Wood. He'd pore over the hunting guide, and scribble stuff down on that board. 

Jesus, that hunting guide. 

The cameras showed him reading the hunting guide in his study. He read it in the bathroom. He took baths, and he'd still be reading it. Once, he dropped it in the water but pulled it out like nothing had happened. And just kept reading. He read that book all over the house. It was getting... scary. I'm a slow reader, but even I wouldn't take that long reading a 50 page book. 

So the professor was acting weirder. He'd go into the woods a lot, come back after dark. He'd leave the two lovebirds alone, but it didn't even feel like he cared anymore about them. 

Then the fiance, Brisby, came. Two months ago, right. He's clearly mad, and I saw him arguing with Stockworth. I assume it was dealing with marriage issues, and I see him arguing with Spankoffski. After he leaves the room, Spankoffski and the professor are talking, but then the professor storms off to his study. 

He pulls out the board, flips through the hunting guide, but then... he...he smiles. Slowly, almost maliciously. It's like-it's like the face a shark would make, when it tastes blood in the water. 

He is staring at the camera now. Where it sits, looking at him and the board. He smiles at the camera, at me. 

And he deliberately takes pieces of paper out with sweeping, almost grandiose movements, and writes the name JONATHAN BRISBY on the board. 

By now, I'm freaked out as fuck. I realize exactly where I've seen Brisby's face before. The last two entries in the hunting guide. The other was Stockworth. 

They weren't the authors. 

_They were the game._

I asked for the hunting guide from evidence, but they said there wasn't a hunting guide in the house. I _know_ there was a hunting guide in that house, I've seen it too many times not to know. 

The professor, after scribbling down his notes, goes out and talks to Brisby. Leads him to the gun room, and they go hunting in the Witch Wood. 

When it's midnight, the professor comes back. Brisby doesn't. The professor looks completely fine. He doesn't have the gun, and there isn't a leaf or speck of mud on him. There aren't any trails from the house into the Witch Wood. It makes no sense, you don't just come back from backwoods hiking like that. 

He looks... almost jaunty. He's singing to himself I think, and he... he _ambles_ back into the house, not a care in the world. 

You're going to think I'm nuts, but something was really, really wrong. By now, I'm just know he's a murderer, but it gets worse. Way, way worse. 

Something... was happening to him. 

I swear he wasn't that tall before. At the beginning of the stay, he was pretty tall, but now his head brushed the doorframes. He went into the forest more, and he'd come back with, I shit you not, animals in his teeth. He started taking off his clothes before he went into the woods, and once again, I think, serial killer. But after watching more and more... he started coming back covered in blood. Once, I saw him come back to the house dragging a deer leg. He ate it bloody on the steps. He'd hose himself off before he went back in, but there's a camera right there, the one I'm getting the feed from. And he's staring directly at it. 

Look, I know it's impossible, but I _swear_ , he's looking at me. He knows I'm watching this. He knew I would be, somehow. 

So by now, it's branching off way more into serial killer territory than I like. But I can't stop watching. I'm too deep in, I know that. I know that not knowing would haunt me for the rest of my life. 

He enters the house, he talks to Spankoffski. I think he must've confessed to the murder, because the terrified look on Spankoffski's face gives me chills. But Spankoffski has the balls to get mad, he starts yelling at the professor and storms off. 

The professor looks at the camera, almost like it's a scene from the fucking Office. And he deliberately takes out the hunting guide, and begins to read. 

And then everything goes to shit. 

So this is about a month and a half ago. I guess Stockworth and Spankoffski were really digging each other, because Spankoffski gets all dressed up, full tux and everything. He straight up proposes to Stockworth in that greenhouse, and if this were a nicer story, they could've ended up happy together. 

But I know better. The professor is getting ready for his big exit. He knows he's being watched. He is making eye contact with every camera he sees, just staring at me. Smiling at me. He knows I see him get ready, see him write his hunting plans, see him put on his best silver watch, see him plant the gun. At one point, he stands in front of a camera and talks to it. There's no audio, but I think he's monologuing. I don't want to know what he says. 

He keeps grinning that awful, toothy grin as he stalks to the greenhouse, his nails scraping against the walls. The wallpaper tears, and when did his nails get so long? When did he get so tall? 

He kicks the door open like it's nothing. 

Stockworth and Spankoffski scream. They clutch at each other, although I don't know if it's love or fear that's keeping them close. I can see the horror in their faces. Drool drips from his chops, and he snarls at them. 

In the end, what's left of the professor doesn't even bother with a gun. 

But Spankoffski tries to block him, ends up getting the brunt of it. The monster's momentum sends it barreling into the greenery, but it's already ripped at Spankoffski's neck. Stockworth drags out Spankoffski's spasming, convulsing body, and she manages to slam the greenhouse door shut, wheeling the lock shut. It's a thick door with a porthole, but the monster rushes to the door, and the monster's eyes, filled with the ecstatic madness of bloodlust, bore into her as it claws at the door. 

The monster abandons the door, and bursts out of the window, glass spraying outwards. 

Inside, Spankoffski is bleeding out on the floor, eyes glazed. Stockworth is sobbing, and with a few, feeble motions, Spankoffski dies in her arms. 

She holds him for a few moments, but then a door down the hall splinters. The monster bursts through the shattered wood, and I can almost hear it taunt her. Stockworth screams, or at least I think she does, and the monster gives chase. 

But as it's chasing her, I realize... it's not trying to catch her. Compared to its true speed, this is nothing. It's enjoying this. It's toying with her. It's taunting her, savoring her fear. 

It chases her into the Witch Wood, and that's the last the cameras see of them. Either of them. 

The body of Stockworth was never found. Maybe that's for the better. The professor's body wasn't found either. 

Officially, there were only two bodies we found. But there was another. It was next to a beartrap, covered in blood. The blood matches up with Stockworth's, but no body. At least, not hers. 

We weren't supposed to count this one. They said it was an timber wolf, but I know it wasn't. I _know_ it wasn't. 

I wasn't supposed to see it. But I went out to see the corpse. 

It sure as hell looked like a wolf. The biggest damn wolf I've ever seen. The two front legs were ripped off, I don't know how. But the body was barely rotted, even after all this time. The flies avoided it. Its pelt was shaggy, and its nails were curled and black. But I looked at the ripped off arms, and that's when I saw it. A silver watch, straining around the bulk of the forearm, cracked. Bloodstained." 

An audible sniffle. 

"I think I'm going to take a vacation after this. I need to get out of this town for a while. Probably somewhere in the Caribbean. No forests. I don't think I could stomach it." 

"Thank you for telling me this, officer. I know it's a lot. Statement ends." 

A crackle of static. 

"I'm pretty sure you're familiar with Leitner's books. I was scared for Officer Doug when I found out they messed with some Leitners, but I think their dyslexia stopped them from anything bad happening. You have to read the books to be affected by them, and thankfully, Officer Doug couldn't read them even if they wanted to. 

I've met the professor before. He... had a real interest in the Lords In Black, and I guess it caught up to him. I didn't expect the Hunt, but thinking about it, I'm not surprised. No matter what, the professor loves song, and here, he was seduced by the song of blood, not the song of infection. 

I'll-I'll explain that later, Archivist. 

To my knowledge, Ms. Lucy is currently living a peaceful life in the woods with Chumby, the real Hatchetfield Ape Man. As it turns out, the famous ape man himself used to be a man once. Don't know if he remembers it or not, but thanks to the Flesh, don't really look like one anymore. He was the one who ended the professor, probably for the better. 

I think they're real happy together, actually. I visit them sometimes, they're a nice couple. 

Officer Doug is still with the HPD, though as of right now, they're on unofficial extended leave. They're on a vacation in the Bahamas. After all they've been through, they deserve it. I... might've pulled a few strings, if you don't mind the expression. The bank is now very, very amenable to Officer Jones. In fact, the airline company itself decided to give them first class tickets and a completely free ride. It's far from the worst use of my abilities, and if it gives them any relief, it would be worth it. 

Recording ends, I guess."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So Hunt!Hidgens I guess? I wasn't entirely sure how to write that, but I'm pretty happy with the end product. Also Lucy and Doug only deserve good things.

**Author's Note:**

> This idea has been ruminating in my head for months and with the release of NT I finally got the motivation to write it. I hope you guys like it!


End file.
